Anita Bloom's Work

The definition of pride per Webster’s dictionary is, “a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements.” Pride is something that took Anita Bloom thirty years to accomplish as she stutters. Today she is an international speaker, vice chair of the European League of Stuttering Associations, a member of the advisory board for the International Stuttering Association, and she has her own stuttering consultant company. It took her over thirty years to be proud of her stutter. Over the course of thirty years, she struggled to find a job, social life, partner, her self-esteem and self-worth. This all led to her suicide attempt where throughout her youth she was bullied as no one around her could accept her stutter. …show more content…
Amanda Clover, who is currently in a second-year graduate student talks about the importance faith in therapy. She defines faith as, “a shared confidence between individuals before the manifestation of successful results” (Glover & Shapiro, 2016). It is faith that gives people hope that they can reach their potential for positive change. It is the clinicians job to have faith in their clients who do stutter as they benefit from knowing that the clinician possesses the proper qualities such as knowledge, skills and temperament for them to achieve successful communication. There was a study by DiLollo, Manning and Plexico (2010) which discussed the differences between fluency treatments that were successful and those that were less successful. Results indicated that fluency treatments were successful when the clinician believed in the client’s success which is just one characteristic of the speech language pathologist which made the treatment a triumph. “Success begets success, success leads to confidence and hope in positive change” (Glover & Shapiro, 2016). Within the clinical context, that confidence manifests in treatment and its outcome. This taught me to have an optimistic atmosphere for individuals focus on the success they are achieving and to make sure that every step along the way they are reaching that …show more content…
Dave Williams discusses how humor can be integrated into therapy. Humor not only reduces the stress of the listener but also the speaker. It also aids in the understanding of a personal matter which leads to changed behaviors. Comedians who stutter expand their comfort zone and they have fun doing it. They are being empowered by their stutter by making jokes on how on ludicrousness listeners reactions can be to stuttering. Humor also helps the listener distance himself from the stutter as they object it. This allows new insights to emerge as they begin to desensitize themselves to the stutter. This helps as the individual learns to stop focusing on the mistakes and starts to have a new perspective. Each individual deal with struggles in different way and the clinician needs to know what works for their client but humor can be one way to develop